Sales exceed antiques valuation

An auction of The Great Britain Philatelic Collections of Lady Mairi Bury have exceeded their antiques valuation of £2.6 million.

The final sum raised was more than £3 million following the three-day auction, which took place Sotheby's in London.

The top lot of the sale was The Balance of Lady Mairi's collection of King Edward VII stamps, which are mounted on 91 pages to the highest exhibition standard and housed in two exhibition boxes.

An antiques valuation of between £20,000 and £25,000 had been placed on the collection but it eventually brought in £66,000.

Richard Ashton, Sotheby's Worldwide philatelic consultant, said: "Throughout her remarkable life, during which stamp collecting was just one of the many pursuits she tackled with the most incredible detail, Lady Mairi seeked out items that added anything of interest to her collection."

At a recent auction in Toronto, a painting by the late London artist Paterson Ewen went under the hammer for $27,000 (£17,150), more than three times its previous antiques valuation.